Chapter 3: The Queen's Gambit, The Serpent's Gain
The air in the Red Keep grew heavier with each passing moon, thick with unspoken fears and the cloying scent of medicinal herbs that clung to Queen Aemma's apartments like a shroud. Voldemort, now observing the world from the vantage point of a child nearing his fourth nameday, found the atmosphere almost… stimulating. Fear was a currency he understood, a precursor to chaos, and chaos was a ladder.
Aemma was a fading ghost, her luminescence dimming with the relentless progression of her latest pregnancy. This time, the Maesters spoke with even graver tones, their whispers reaching even Baelon's nursery, carried by nervous servants. King Viserys was a study in frayed nerves, his usual melancholic disposition curdling into a raw, palpable anxiety. He spent hours by Aemma's side, his large frame hunched, his voice a low murmur of comfort that Voldemort, on his occasional, carefully orchestrated visits, found utterly pathetic.
"You are my everything, Aemma," Viserys would say, his voice thick with unshed tears. "You and Baelon. This child… this child will complete us."
Voldemort, perched on a too-large chair, his small legs dangling, would offer a solemn nod, his pale blue eyes, so like his mother's yet chillingly devoid of her warmth, fixed on the King. He understood completion. His own pursuit of it had led him down paths of unimaginable darkness. Viserys's idea of completion – a fragile queen, a mewling infant – was laughably mundane.
He played the part of the concerned son, of course. He had learned to mimic the expressions of worry he saw on the faces of others, to offer his tiny hand to his mother, allowing her frail fingers to clutch his with surprising strength. "Mama will be well," he would state with an unchildlike certainty that some found comforting, others faintly unsettling. He knew, with the cold detachment that had always been his shield and weapon, that Aemma Arryn was walking a precipice. Her life force was guttering like a cheap candle in a gale.
His own private pursuits continued unabated. The mysterious, vibrating door in the forgotten corridor of Maegor's Holdfast became a regular pilgrimage. He had learned to time his illicit visits with the changing of guards or the deep slumber of his attendants. He still couldn't wrench it open through brute magical force – his power, though growing steadily, was not yet capable of such unsubtle displays on that scale. But he could feel the thrumming energy behind it more clearly now, a deep, resonant pulse that seemed to call to something within his Targaryen blood, a counterpoint to the colder, more familiar song of his wizarding magic.
He experimented. Pressing his palm against the ancient wood, he would send out tendrils of his own power, not to force, but to explore, to communicate. On one occasion, a faint warmth bloomed beneath his hand in response, and the rhythmic vibrations subtly altered their tempo, as if acknowledging his presence. It was not sentient, he judged, not in the way a living creature was. It felt more like… an engine. A dormant heart of immense, primal power. Valyrian, undoubtedly. And it was here, within his grasp, if only he could unlock the way.
He also practiced on the living, in infinitesimally small ways. A serving girl, clumsy and prone to dropping things, would find her tray steadying as if by an unseen hand just as it began to tip. A stern-faced guard, whose gaze lingered on him with what Voldemort perceived as suspicion, would suddenly feel an inexplicable urge to scratch his nose, breaking his intimidating stare. These were exercises in precision, in the subtle manipulation of minds and objects, Legilimency and telekinesis woven into the fabric of his daily existence, invisible threads puppeteering the world around him. It was a far cry from the Imperius Curse, but it was a start. The goal was to make his influence seem natural, or at least, deniable.
The day Aemma went into labor, a grim storm broke over King's Landing, mirroring the turmoil within the Red Keep. Rain lashed against the windows, and the wind howled like a banshee, a fitting soundtrack to the Queen's suffering. Viserys, barred from the birthing chamber by the Grand Maester's decree, paced his solar like a caged beast. Voldemort was confined to the nursery with a frantic nursemaid who kept muttering prayers to the Mother.
He listened. The screams were muffled by stone and distance, but they were there, raw and animalistic. He felt no pity. Pain was a tool, a teacher. He had inflicted it, endured it. Aemma's current agony was merely a biological process, one that held significant political implications.
Hours passed. The screams faded, replaced by an ominous silence that was, in its own way, more terrifying to the household. Then came the hurried footsteps, the hushed, urgent voices. Voldemort sat on his small bed, perfectly still, a miniature prince carved from ice, waiting.
It was Otto Hightower who eventually came for him. The Hand's face was drawn, his usual composure strained. He knelt before Baelon, a rare gesture of deference that did not go unnoticed by the boy.
"Prince Baelon," Hightower said, his voice low and grave. "Your father… the King… wishes to see you. Your mother… Queen Aemma…" He hesitated, choosing his words with care. "She has fought bravely."
Voldemort needed no further explanation. He had smelled death too many times, felt its chill embrace too intimately, not to recognize its presence now, hanging heavy in the castle air. He allowed Hightower to take his hand, his small fingers resting coolly in the Hand's grasp.
The royal apartments were a scene of controlled chaos. Maesters bustled, servants wept openly, and guards stood with grim faces. Viserys was a broken man. He sat beside the great bed, Aemma's lifeless hand clasped in both of his, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. The Queen lay still, her face ashen, a single sheet drawn up to her chin. There was a small, swaddled bundle in a cradle nearby, but it too was still. Terribly still.
"She is gone, Baelon," Viserys choked out, looking at his son with eyes so filled with despair that even Voldemort felt a flicker of… something. Not sympathy, but a clinical interest in the sheer depth of the man's grief. Such profound emotional vulnerability was a dangerous weakness in a king. "And your brother… young Jaehaerys… he lived but an hour."
So, a brother. Born and died almost in the same breath. The succession remained solely with him, Baelon-Voldemort. Aemma's final, agonizing effort had produced another fleeting, tragic male heir, solidifying Baelon's own position even as it shattered his father. It was a masterstroke of cruel fate, one that Voldemort himself might have engineered had he the means.
He walked to his father's side, his expression carefully molded into one of somber understanding, far beyond his years. He placed his small hand on Viserys's arm. "Father," he said, his voice clear and steady.
Viserys looked at him, a flicker of surprise in his tear-filled eyes. He saw not just a child, but the undeniable Targaryen features, the silver-gold hair, the pale eyes that now seemed to hold an unnatural depth. He saw his heir. His only remaining child.
"My son," Viserys whispered, pulling Baelon into a crushing embrace. "My only son. What will I do without her?"
Voldemort endured the embrace, his mind already calculating. The King was adrift, consumed by sorrow. The ship of state was, for the moment, rudderless. This was Otto Hightower's moment to steer, or perhaps, for a serpent to whisper new directions from the shadows.
The days that followed were a blur of funereal rites and suffocating gloom. Aemma Arryn, the Good Queen, was laid to rest with all the honors befitting her station. Her dragon, a gentle creature named Silverwing that she had never claimed as a rider but had been tethered to her House, let out a mournful cry from the Dragonpit that echoed across the city, a sound that many took as an omen. Voldemort, standing beside his grieving father during the long ceremonies, was a picture of stoic, princely grief, his small, black-clad figure a focal point of sympathy and speculation.
He watched Otto Hightower closely. The Hand was a pillar of strength for the King, managing the affairs of the realm with quiet efficiency, his demeanor respectful yet firm. But Voldemort saw the subtle tightening of his influence, the way lords now sought his counsel even more readily, the almost imperceptible shift in the court's center of gravity. Hightower was consolidating power, using the King's grief as a shield and an opportunity.
Voldemort did not intervene directly. He was still too young, his influence too nascent for overt political maneuvering. Instead, he observed, learned, and subtly practiced his arts. He found that Viserys, in his sorrow, was more susceptible to suggestion. A quiet word, a seemingly innocent question from his only son, could sometimes plant a seed in the King's mind.
"Father," Baelon asked one evening, as Viserys stared blankly at the Valyrian model city, his grief a palpable presence in the room. "Will Aunt Rhaenyra be sad too? Mama loved her."
Viserys blinked, focusing on his son. "Yes, Baelon. Rhaenyra loved your mother very much. We must… we must look after Rhaenyra."
Rhaenyra. His cousin, older by several years, now motherless herself in a way, for Aemma had been like a mother to her. She had been devastated by the Queen's death, her youthful exuberance replaced by a quiet sorrow. With Aemma gone, and the infant Jaehaerys dead, Baelon was the undisputed heir. This was a crucial difference from the history he was slowly piecing together from servants' gossip and Maesters' lessons – a history where the original Baelon's death had thrown the succession into turmoil, leading to Rhaenyra being named heir. His continued existence changed that particular equation significantly.
He was the male heir. The direct line. There was no question, by current Westerosi law and tradition. Yet, Viserys's grief was a wild card. And Otto Hightower, Voldemort sensed, would not be idle. The Hand had his own daughter, Alicent, a comely and gentle girl who had been a companion to Rhaenyra and had offered quiet comfort to the King in his bereavement. Voldemort saw the calculation in Hightower's eyes whenever Alicent was near Viserys. A new queen could mean new heirs, new complications, or new opportunities for the Hand.
Voldemort decided to pay more attention to Rhaenyra. She was a Targaryen, a dragonrider. Syrax, her young yellow dragon, was growing swiftly. She was spirited, proud, and now, vulnerable. He found her one day in the godswood, a place he rarely frequented, finding its solemn quietude and bleeding weirwood tree rather distasteful. She was sitting by the dark pool, idly tossing pebbles into the water.
He approached her, his small footsteps barely making a sound on the damp earth. "Cousin Rhaenyra?"
She looked up, startled. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but there was a spark of her usual fire in them. "Prince Baelon. What are you doing here?"
"Father is sad," Baelon stated simply. "Are you sad?"
Rhaenyra's expression softened slightly. "Yes, Baelon. Very sad. Your mother… she was very kind to me."
"She said dragons are our strength," Baelon said, his gaze intense. "But also a fire that can consume. She said we must learn to control it." He was repeating Aemma's words, testing Rhaenyra's reaction, probing her thoughts.
Rhaenyra looked at him, truly looked at him, perhaps for the first time seeing beyond the image of the little prince. She saw the unnatural stillness, the piercing intelligence in his pale eyes. "Queen Aemma was very wise," she said slowly. "And you listen well, cousin."
"I listen to everything," Baelon replied, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. "Will you ride Syrax soon?"
The question seemed to ignite something in her. "Yes," she said, a hint of defiance creeping into her tone. "I will. And she will be magnificent."
"Dragons are power," Baelon said, his voice a low murmur. "The greatest power."
Rhaenyra nodded. "They are. They are Targaryen power." She paused, then, perhaps seeing a kindred spirit in this strange, solemn little boy who spoke of power and control, she added, "Some forget that. Some fear it." She was likely thinking of men like Otto Hightower.
Voldemort stored this away. Rhaenyra understood the importance of dragons, felt the Targaryen exceptionalism. She could be useful. Or, if her ambition grew unchecked, a formidable rival, even without being the direct heir.
News of Queen Aemma's death eventually reached Daemon Targaryen in the Stepstones. Word trickled back to King's Landing of his reaction – a brief, grim silence, followed by a renewed ferocity in his campaign against the Triarchy. Daemon had loved Aemma in his own way, or so the stories went. Her death would affect him, but how, Voldemort couldn't yet fathom. Would it draw him back to King's Landing, to comfort his brother, or to stir fresh trouble? Either way, Voldemort anticipated their eventual meeting with a cold curiosity. Daemon, the Rogue Prince, the rider of the fearsome Caraxes, was a variable he needed to assess personally.
The months following Aemma's death saw a subtle but definite shift in the Red Keep. Viserys remained mired in grief, relying more and more on Otto Hightower. The Small Council meetings were reportedly tense, with Lord Corlys Velaryon, never one to mince words, openly questioning the Hand's growing influence. The Sea Snake proposed that Viserys remarry quickly, suggesting his own daughter, Laena Velaryon, a girl of Targaryen descent through her mother Rhaenys, and a dragonrider herself. A politically astute move, Voldemort recognized, one that would bind the powerful Velaryons closer to the crown and counter Hightower's influence.
Otto Hightower, naturally, had other ideas. His daughter, Alicent, was a constant, soothing presence at the King's side. She read to him, walked with him in the gardens, offered a sympathetic ear. Voldemort saw the trap being laid, as clear as day. A gentle, comforting presence slowly weaving herself into the fabric of the grieving King's life. It was a classic maneuver, one he might have employed himself, had he been a comely young woman instead of a four-year-old boy.
Voldemort, the silent observer, continued his own work. He managed, through intense concentration and a series of carefully applied magical nudges, to subtly influence the dreams of one of the older Maesters, one who was researching Valyrian artifacts. He implanted a recurring image – the symbol he had seen faintly etched near the lock of the mysterious, vibrating door in Maegor's Holdfast. He didn't know what it meant, but perhaps the Maester's subconscious, prodded by ancient texts, could decipher it.
His control over his own burgeoning magic was becoming more refined. He could now levitate small objects with ease, not just make them twitch. He could sense the emotions of those around him with greater clarity, a passive form of Legilimency that gave him a constant stream of information about their fears, desires, and loyalties. He learned to shield his own thoughts more effectively, projecting an aura of childlike innocence that was increasingly at odds with the ancient, calculating mind within.
He was Baelon Targaryen, the uncontested heir to the Iron Throne. His mother was dead, his father broken by grief, the court a seething pit of ambition and intrigue. It was fertile ground. He had lost his Horcruxes, his wand, his old world. But he had gained a new name, a new lineage potent with a different kind of magic, and a throne waiting to be claimed.
The Dance of the Dragons was a story whispered for a future time, a dynastic struggle born of disputed succession. His very existence, his survival, had altered the opening moves of that deadly game. But Voldemort knew that peace, especially in a place like Westeros, was merely an interlude between wars. And he would be ready. He would not just participate in the dance; he would orchestrate it, twisting its steps to the tune of his own dark symphony. The serpent in the cradle was growing, and soon, its fangs would begin to show. He looked towards the future, not with a child's hope, but with the cold, predatory anticipation of a Dark Lord reborn. The Iron Throne would be his. The dragons would be his. And this world, in time, would learn a new name for fear.